Meet the maker: Nandkishor Yadav – Cup of Joy

>In an age where insipid cups of coffee at overpriced chains are the norm, the concept of a freshly brewed filter coffee is, well, passé. There’s a brand, though, that’s trying to resuscitate the seemingly bygone idea back to its full glory — and it’s rather brilliant.

In an age where insipid cups of coffee at overpriced chains are the norm, the concept of a freshly brewed filter coffee is, well, passé. There’s a brand, though, that’s trying to resuscitate the seemingly bygone idea back to its full glory — and it’s rather brilliant.

The Beginnings

The brainchild of Nandkishor Yadav and his family, Cup of Joy was established a few months ago with the aim of starting a filter coffee tradition. Says a spokesperson from the brand, “We’re folks who are coffee aficionados ourselves. We love the aroma, the taste, and the bliss that the perfect cup of coffee brings to our lives. A badly made cup of coffee is borderline blasphemous, yet conversely, finding quality filter coffee isn’t a doddle. We firmly believe that filter coffee is much better than the cappuccinos and espressos of the world, and with that very belief, we laid the foundations of Cup of Joy. Our aim is to ensure that we deliver freshly roasted and ground coffee to our customers, because every cup has to be perfect!”

To ensure the aforementioned perfection, the team works tirelessly to source the best coffee beans from the Chikmagalur estates. The roasting, grinding, and packaging process, on the other hand, is managed in Bangalore itself. They also have two roast cycles every week to ensure their consumers get the freshest filter coffee possible.

Furthermore, the brand offers an incredible variety of products too. For starters, there’s the Filter Coffee Powder that’s available in three blends: Pure Aroma, which is 100% coffee, Madras Meter, which is the most popular South Indian blend with 80% coffee, and Mild Bliss, which consist of 70% coffee. If you’re someone who can’t do without freshly ground coffee, though, they sell high quality roasted beans too.

In addition to that, they sell traditional South Indian coffee percolators as well. While there are plenty of fancy machines to brew coffee in the market, they claim that the traditional coffee maker works miraculously well, is excellent in output, and is incredibly easy to use.

The Significance Of Filter Coffee

The traditional way to procure filter coffee is from nearby stores that’ll grind roasted beans and mix it with proportions of chicory, usually tailor-made for the customer’s needs. Although these small stores are commonplace in a majority of the South, they aren’t easily accessible to the rest of the country. To make it worse, bar a handful of chains, these stores are often independent — which means the quality of coffee differs everywhere. Upon undertaking consumer research, the brand found that even in heavy filter coffee consumption areas, there were indications of a serious dip in the quality of coffee over the past few years.

The larger FMCG players, too, have a significant role in the filter coffee market. While the distribution is flawless and rather convenient, the freshness of the coffee is lost as it’s manufactured in bulk with a nine-month validity. On the other hand, FMCG players also fail to offer the perfect chicory-to-coffee customisation — which is exactly what Cup of Joy aims to fix.

The brand also has its own subscription clubs, which saves you the hassle of ordering every month.

Plans For The Future

Slow and steady, one baby step at a time seems to be the mantra, as the Cup of Joy team claims it has no plans to grow in scale too quickly. “We aspire to be a gourmet filter coffee place that people come back to solely because our product is good. We want to grow through consumer love and word of mouth. Unlike the other start-ups of this age, we’re going to stay away from funding simply because we don’t want to succumb to the pressure of scaling up. Our priorities are in order, and we want to keep it that way.”

The team instead chooses to rely on social media, with Instagram being its biggest marketing channel today. While it doesn’t mind dabbling in Facebook and Google ads, it says it’ll stay away from traditional advertising at least in the near future.

“Most importantly, we make it a point to listen to our consumers. The coffee makers and subscription club were added based on the feedback we received,” says the spokesperson. “We relish the fact that we’re a small firm. It allows us to interact with, understand, and focus on each one of our consumers individually. One of our consumers wrote a mail to our customer care proclaiming their love for our coffee. Little Black Book covered us too, and that was solely because the author had tried our coffee at a friend’s place and loved it. We love the little milestones we’ve achieved already within two months of inception, and will only aim to get better in the future!”

Rameez Shaikh is a twenty-three year old writer. With a degree in journalism to his name, he's an aspiring author with an absolutely astounding admiration for alliteration. Leisure propels him to read, dance, pen fiction and gloat about himself in third person. On weekdays, he works as a features writer. On weekends, he's a Manchester United fan.